In N.J., cameras follow you everywhere

They are watching as you work out at the gym, wait for a train, drive a car or walk down the street.

Video surveillance cameras, both private and public, are just about everywhere — observing people as they go about their daily lives, typically recording hour after hour of mundane footage.

But when something unusual happens, video can be a potent tool for law enforcement. A multitude of pictures — from retailers’ security cameras, but also from thousands of personal phone cameras — gave police in just days compelling visual evidence to zero in on men they suspected to be responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings. And with so many cameras positioned in key spots, it is becoming commonplace to have video of a crime scene or activities that provide authorities with invaluable information.

Such information comes at a cost, however, as civil rights advocates are quick to point out. Increased use of video surveillance, along with other tracking technologies, such as E-ZPass transponders and GPS chips in phones, creates a danger, they say, by recording too much information about innocent citizens — data that can easily be accessed by the government no matter who does the recording.

“We are worried that cameras are becoming so ubiquitous that people won’t be able to go anywhere without having their activities stored forever,” said Ben Wizner, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s speech, privacy and technology project.

And in a world that has become all-too-accustomed to acts of terror, there may be no will to reverse that trend. Some North Jersey towns have installed their own surveillance systems in an effort to reduce crime and catch criminals.

Fairview and North Bergen use cameras to watch major roads and public areas. One of Fairview’s 19 cameras recently helped catch a suspect who allegedly groped women, said the borough police chief, Frank Del Vecchio. Some of North Bergen’s 114 cameras are placed in residential areas, and officials say they are a comfort to residents worried about crime.

North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco said the cameras are a public safety tool. The township’s police chief, Robert Dowd, points to a recent survey of residents in which more than 88 percent of respondents said they want even more cameras, and 95 percent said they feel safer because of the surveillance.

“We have certainly reduced the fear of crime,” Dowd said.

Some North Jersey towns, including Mahwah and Wayne, have received federal funds to purchase video cameras to monitor so-called soft targets for terrorists, such as highways and malls. An increasing number of police departments have received federal grants to purchase license-plate readers to help spot stolen cars, along with vehicles related to people on watch lists for suspected gang members or terrorists. The information from those readers is downloaded to a national database.

Officials with the state’s Office of Homeland Security declined to provide information to The Record last year about how long videos and license plate information are retained in a national database.

The ACLU has been asking that same question of officials in 40 states, including New Jersey, and has compiled public records that provide some answers, Wizner said. The findings, he said, will be released in a report later this month. The ACLU, he said, would like uniform regulations for how long surveillance information can be retained, instead of relying on towns or states to set their own rules.

“We’ve never been opposed to surveillance cameras in high-impact places or an event like the marathon,” Wizner said. “We’re talking about a balance, the public interest in safety against not turning into a surveillance society where the government retains records on innocent citizens.”

Respondents to a North Bergen survey conducted by police seemed more concerned about safety than privacy — 74 percent said video surveillance cameras do not invade people’s privacy, while 19 percent said they did. North Bergen officials said they erase videos taken by the township’s cameras after 30 days, a practice that appears to be common for local law enforcement authorities.

Impossible to avoid

Police have increasingly relied on video surveillance, mostly from private sources, to solve crimes. Two years ago, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli estimated that video played a role in about 15 percent of all investigations by his office.

Last week, Mahwah Police Chief James Batelli said a resident gave township police a video that had been recorded at the Boston Marathon finish line. It was handed over to the FBI, which was compiling a montage of images to get a full picture of what happened in that area over the course of the race, he said.

For North Jersey residents, it’s almost impossible to avoid video cameras during a typical day — there’s even one above the pool at the YMCA of Greater Bergen County in Hackensack. It was installed for swimmer safety, officials there said. Here are some examples:

ä State transportation officials monitor traffic on the state’s roads and highways with 500 cameras, the images displayed on an 18-by-50-foot screen at a facility in Woodbridge.

ä NJ Transit officials said they have a “large network” of cameras to monitor bus, rail and light rail systems but would not provide specific information about it, citing security considerations.

ä The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees area airports, bridges and tunnels, would only say it uses “technology” as part of its security efforts.

ä The use of security cameras has been spreading to schools, with Ramsey officials recently discussing the installation of a surveillance system inside the high school. Clifton purchased such a system last year after a student reported being raped in a high school stairwell. Several towns have installed cameras, monitored by police, to watch school exteriors.

ä Paterson has had an extensive surveillance system in place for about 10 years to watch “hot spot locations” for crime, said the city police director, Glenn Brown. He declined to discuss how the system is used.

ä Fairleigh Dickinson University has 190 cameras on its Teaneck campus, watching public areas in academic buildings, parking lots, and the school’s fitness center, but not in classrooms. Cameras also are located in dormitory hallways, but not in areas where students would have an expectation of privacy, said David Miles, FDU’s director of public safety for the Teaneck campus.

Miles said the cameras helped solve a series of dormitory burglaries seven years ago, when they were first installed. Last fall, he said, they helped catch a male student writing derogatory remarks about two female students on their dorm room door. The university publicizes its use of cameras, Miles said, but the suspect apparently missed numerous signs on campus.

“The guy had no idea the camera was there,” Miles said.

He said students have not complained that cameras invade their privacy, and he believes they have helped reduce campus crime from nearly 400 incidents annually a decade ago to 140 last year. He said other factors, including the closing of a pub on campus, contributed to the decline.

Wizner, of the ACLU, said studies have not shown that video surveillance leads to a decrease in crime.

In North Bergen, however, officials said the cameras have been a deterrent to crime ever since the $2 million system, funded by a state grant, was installed four years ago. Dowd, the township’s police chief, said the system allows officers to conduct virtual patrols in some areas by panning and zooming cameras, increasing the department’s efficiency.

The township’s deputy police chief, Peter Fasilis, said criminal mischief complaints have dropped dramatically in at least one area, at 72nd Street and Bergenline Avenue.

However, he said he could not prove that the cameras had a larger impact on crime across the township, adding that in some cases they lead to more reports of criminal activity.

Del Vecchio, Fairview’s police chief, said the borough issued a $250,000 bond last year to purchase its system. That decision, he said, was inspired by the success of North Bergen’s cameras, which helped lead to the arrest of a suspect in a bank robbery in Fairview.

The ACLU also is concerned about private databases, citing a Justice Department document that shows cellphone providers, including Verizon and AT&T, keep information about what cell towers customers connect to for a year or more. That information could be subpoenaed by the government to obtain patterns of behavior of individual customers, Wizner said.

“You could learn their religious beliefs, sexual orientation, their political affiliation, whether they are having an affair,” Wizner said.

He also noted that video surveillance recordings have the potential to be abused. During the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, a law enforcement officer in a helicopter famously recorded images of a couple having sex on a rooftop.

Dowd and Del Vecchio said they have safeguards in place to prevent that sort of thing. Del Vecchio said any Fairview officer caught using the videos for anything but police work would face discipline. Civilian employees who monitor the North Bergen cameras are required to pass a criminal background check and are constantly supervised by a police officer, Dowd said.